Two weeks in Tulsa. Mostly good times with a little frustration and tongue biting. Good visits with my best friend. Healing with my mother. Two weeks in Tulsa.  Two weeks is more than enough!

Finally, on July 14^th, I left Tulsa and went on to the next leg of my trip. The one I had been planning for months before. While in Tulsa I had done a bit of shopping and purchased some additional clothing items I hadn’t had when I got there. When I arrived at the Tulsa International Airport at 6:30 in the morning, I walked into the Delta Airlines doors to find a crowd of people standing around and no semblance of any sort of line or order.

I walked up to the crowd and stood in what I hoped was a line for a few minutes not sure what was going on. There were three kiosks in the middle of the crowd, each with three separate terminals for self check in, but I’ve found those difficult to use in the past, especially when you do not have the credit card that was used to purchase the tickets so I stood for a few minutes hoping to move forward in this line and be invited to the counter to check in. Since I was checking a bag anyway, it only made sense to go to the counter, but after a few minutes it became apparent that this was not a line and there was no order or logic to the goings on. A ticket agent would call out a name and someone would randomly step out of the crowd to go to the counter.

I decided to give it a shot and much to my surprise, I was able to check in using the kiosk, without incident. I returned to my spot in the “line” when I was finished and not five minutes later my name was called as a ticket agent held up a long, white strip of paper, I recognized to be a luggage tag. I politely made my way through the crowd to the counter, guilty that I had such a short wait when so many of these people were standing around when I arrived but relieved that things were going so smoothly and that I would have time to avoid a repeat of my experience at the San Francisco airport on the first day.

I walked up to the counter, hoisted my suitcase onto the scale, made note of the weight and hoped no one else would. As I was making my way to the counter, the woman who had called my name turned around and walked back toward the other end and now as I prayed to the luggage handlers union gods for leeway she came back to where I was waiting.  “What do we got?” she asked loudly. Apparently, we were putting on a show for the entire group. “Oh. That’s 54 pounds.”

I stared at her, blinking. “Is that a problem?” Every airline has a limit and I didn’t know what Delta’s was but surely it couldn’t be less than 50 pounds. Surely this wasn’t enough over to matter.

“Yes sir! It’s gotta be fity pounds.” She hollered back at me.

I thrust my weight onto my left hip and threw my shoulders back in my best attempt at incredulity as I looked at her and said, “Seriously?!”

“Yes sir!” she hollered again, “it’s gotta be fity pounds, otherwise I gotta charge you fity dallahs.”

Now I ask you, honestly, what do they expect you to do in this moment? You’re standing at the airport. You’ve probably been dropped off and left to your own devices. It’s too late to change your mind about anything. There’s a crowd of people around who want you to hurry up and finish your business and get the hell out of the way so they can be next. There’s no time for hemming and hawing. No time to evaluate what you’ve brought and think about what you could give to friend or family member who drove you. No time to do anything. It’s a racket, plain and simple. And I could understand if my bag was 70 or 80 pounds and the limit is 50 but 54 pounds?

Fortunately, I remembered exactly how my bag was packed and what was where. I realized I could reach into the top most part of the bag and put my hands on a plastic bag with three books in it. I tugged on the zipper and opened the bag far enough to shove my arm down inside, felt around for the familiar feel of plastic and the block shape of three stacked books and pulled the bag out. I reached for the zipper to close the bag back up when she said, “Now it’s fity-two pounds,” as if that was all that needed to be said.

“Really!?!” I was exasperated now, “You’re going to charge me for two pounds?!?”

“Yes sir,” she said. “If it’s fity-one pounds it’s fity dallahs.”

“There’s nothing else I can take out of there besides my dirty laundry,” I said. Can you at least give me a shopping back to put it in?”

She looked dumbly at me and said, “I don’t think we got any a them.” And she walked away.

My dirty laundry was neatly folded and stuffed inside a plastic grocery bag, one of the not very thick variety and while it was, therefore self contained, it was not particularly private. I pulled the bag of laundry out of my suitcase and noticed that the weight was now 47 pounds. Might as well shove these books back in there, I thought. With the books back in and the dirty laundry out my suit case weighed 49 pounds. I was just zipping the suitcase back up as she came back.

“How’s it lookin’ now?” she called boisterously.

“Did you find a shopping bag?” I asked, knowing she had not looked.

“Nuh-ah!” and she turned and looked at one of her co-workers. “You ain’t got any shoppin’ bags back there do you?” And before the co-worker could even respond she turned back to me and said, “Nah, we ain’t got any of them.”

“Mm hmmm,” I replied, seeing how much effort she had put into my plight. “its 49 pounds,” I said stretching out my arm and placing my hand in front of her palm side up. “I’ll take my fifty dollars, now, thank you.”

She looked at me, confused.

“Well, if it cost me fifty dollars for 51 pounds, then I figure I should get fifty dollars for 49 pounds.”

She laughed. Clearly I must’ve been joking. “’Fraid it don’t work like that,” she said, her gold tooth sparking back at me. “But you do get my service with a smile.”

“Yeah. That and the fifty dollars you’re not giving me won’t get me very far.”

We completed our business and I headed on my way, once again, without any direction about where to go for my gate. This time I learned from my previous mistake and looked at the boarding passes in my hand carefully to make sure I knew which one was for my first flight and found the gate number. The signs were clearly marked and I found my way to my gate with no problem and with time to spare. I even had time to stop in a gift shop where I found another t-shirt I liked, bought it, and was graciously given a big enough bag to put the shirt and my grocery bag full of dirty laundry into.

Five hours and two bumpy flights later I landed in Albany, New York. Having been seated in seat 1B for both flights, I was once again, the first one off the plane. My Brother-in-Law David showed up with my two nieces, just in time and with suit-case in tow we headed out.

It’s funny how when you don’t know where you’re going, it feels like the trip takes forever, and this trip was no different. It couldn’t
have taken more than 15 minutes to get from the airport to my sister’s house, but it seemed a lot longer. I told David when I got in the car that I had an envelope I had to mail from a blue mailbox. Mom had given me a piece of ministry related mail that had to be mailed that day and had to go from a blue mailbox. I didn’t matter what city it was mailed in, just as long as it was mailed that day. I looked for one at the airports as I went along but never did find one so I needed David to take me to a mail box. Since I hadn’t eaten yet I was also quite keen on the idea of lunch. Of course David and the girls had already eaten so there was no rush and he thought it would be wise to go to their house first to drop off my suit case.

At the apartment, the girls went directly to the play ground outside their front door and David lead me in the house where he introduced me to a young man by the name of Brent who has been staying with them for a couple months…  Everything is relative and when I say, “young man” I’m talking about a 22 year old. We spoke briefly and then David and Brent started talking about going to the Garage to work on Brent’s 1951 VW Bus.

I reminded David that we had to mail this envelope and he told Brent they’d work on the Bus later. I then reminded David that I was hungry. He asked me if I wanted to just find something at the house. I reminded him I needed to mail this envelope today and we headed out again, dragging the girls away from the playground.

We drove to the post office where David and Erin get their mail and while he checked their mailbox he told the girls to show me where the outgoing mail was. They lead me around a couple of corners to the desk where there were two people in line in front of me. As we stood waiting for our turn, my younger niece, Regan, decided she wanted to show me how fast she can run. There’s little that I find more enjoyable than watching small children running around unattended in semi-busy, public places…. Especially when I’m the one responsible for them.

Several minutes past and just as David came around the corner to find out what was taking so long, I was called up to the counter. As I was walking up to the counter I looked across the space at a wall we had passed coming over and saw several slots in a wall, with a clearly marked “Out-Going Mail” sign over them.

I looked at the woman at the counter, who fortunately had a smile on her face, and said, “I’m from out of town, and my nieces were being helpful and showing me where the out-going mail goes.” I mouthed an apology, to which she smiled, nodded and said, “No problem,” as she took the envelope from my hand.

After the post office we headed to McDonald’s so I could get some lunch and no sooner had Regan gotten out of the car but she made a b-line for the yard next to the building and the flowers planted under the windows. She promptly grabbed hold of one of the flower buds and snapped it off. As she walked back toward me she carefully and meticulously pulled the extra leaves off the stem and then held the murdered blossom up to me which I gratefully accepted with proper grandeur and adulation.

While we sat in the restaurant, I with my Big Mac and Fries and the girls with their Oreo McFlurries, yes ies, David looked up and out the window to see at large pick up truck with some sort of lift kit installed pull into the parking lot and park next to his Nissan Exterra. He started craning his neck as it drove in to get a look at what kind of “package” it had and finally determined that it was some sort of substandard, “generic package”.

As we backed out of the parking spot next to the truck, he looked it over again. “That’s a [insert vehicle specific nerdy boy knowledge which I do not possess here] with a [insert more nerdy boy knowledge about after market lifting equipment I also do not possess here],” he said. To be fair, I recognized it to be a black four door pick-up truck with a full sized back seat and a full sized bed and a brand name that anyone would recognize but which has now escaped me.

“Erin says that’s what I should get,” he told me, “a pick-up big enough to haul the family around in and put my own [insert more nerdy boy knowledge about lifting equipment here] on it.”

Without batting an eye, I turned to him and said, “So you’ve got a small penis, huh?”

 

When we returned to the house, and entered through the garage on the other side of the house from the playground the girls were only too happy to stick with me instead of going out to play… Especially after I pulled out the presents I bought them. They were lame presents to be sure, but presents nonetheless. Well, anyway, I thought they were pretty lame presents…

You see, while in Tulsa, I had bought a box of honey nut cheerios for my breakfast. Inside the box was a silly little pencil topper with a springy figurine from the latest Ice Age movie. One morning, my mother said, “I think we need to get another box of that cereal and get some pencils and notebooks to go with them and you can give one to each of the girls. Woo hoo! I thought. Pencils and spiral bound notebooks, how exciting! The eye roll is implied.

Turns out, my mother knew what she was talking about. I bought Spiral Notebooks with dog pictures on the fronts (different pictures for each girl) and matching pencil bags and pencils. The girl’s loved them and immediately began “writing” me things.

Regan is four (will be five on Wednesday) and while she can’t write letters and words yet, she “wrote” or more specifically “writed” me several pictures. One was a picture of me as the sun, shining down on me as a man, in a field of me as flowers. One was a picture of Family Trees (which I found particularly amusing). They were trees… a family of them. A momma, a papa, and a coupla kids. And then she writed one more, described it as she drew it and then she augmented the picture, tore it out of her binder and brought it to me where she said, “Here. This is you, naked in the trees, at night, in the rain.” And then she pointed at an accurately placed dark square and a dark line and said, “And these are your pee parts.” Then she folded the paper several times into a small square and said, “Don’t let your mommy or daddy see it.” (Naturally, I showed it to my sister when Regan wasn’t around.) Come to think of it… I don’t know if I wasn’t supposed to let my mommy and daddy see the picture… or my pee parts… I’m not planning on showing them either one really so it’s OK.

Caitlin will be seven in November. She is learning to read and write and was able to actually write a few things in her book for me, before she got bored and started writing me pictures as well.

While this was going on David and Brent cracked open a couple of beers (at 3:00 in the afternoon) and parked themselves in the living room to watch old episodes of Star Gate on DVD. I found myself babysitting the kids while we sat on the stairs. I decided to pull out my computer so I could show the girls some pictures of them when they were younger. Every time a new picture came up Regan would call out, “Oh that so cute!” Um, yeah, honey? Half these pictures are of you! As we were getting close to the end of the picture review, David and Brent were finishing up an episode and came back to the kitchen for another beer. They came over to the stairs to see what was going on at which time Regan magically produced an elastic band of sorts that she wrapped around her head before pushing it back up shoving it under her bangs.

I looked up at Regan and began to laugh as I said, “She looks like Olivia Newton John.”

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me tell you it’s amazing how much difference three years can make and how old a person can be made to feel in the span of a few seconds.

“She looks like Olivia Newton John”, I said as I glanced at the boys.

There were crickets chirping.

I looked at Brent who, again, is 22. “Do you even know who Olivia Newton John is?” He just shook his head.

I looked at David who is three years younger than I. “You know who Olivia Newton John is, right?”

More crickets.

“Sandy?”

“Greece?”

“Let’s Get Physical?”

“No?”

In unison they shook their heads and said, “No.”

So I sent them to bed without any dinner.

I thought I was going to finish this story in this final post but it’s become apparent to me that is not possible so stick around for more, soon.

Most of my time spent in Oklahoma was uneventful.  I’ve already written about my interactions with my mother and the changes that have taken place with both of us in our relationship so I won’t rehash that again.  I’ll just say that I’m at once encouraged and disappointed in how things went.

After my last post from Tulsa, a conversation went down in which I expressed exactly what I’d said in the post.  It started out innocently enough.  After much cajoling, arrangements had finally been made for one of my mother’s friends to come spend the evening at my mother’s house so that I could get together with my good friend Heather.  The plan was that my mother’s friend Dorothy would come over around 6:00 in the evening and eat dinner that I would prepare for them and then hang out with my mother until she was ready to go to bed.  My mother was pretty self sufficient in small increments and would be ok by herself for a little while if I wasn’t home before Dorothy left.

Mom and I were discussing what would be an appropriate meal to prepare and we’d pretty much settled on Salmon with Asparagus and a Salad.  If this sounds familiar (It’s what I described cooking the first night) it’s because we had a lot of Salmon with Asparagus and Salad.  I asked a couple things about whether or not Dorothy would want a certain thing on her salad or on her salmon.  Finally Mom said, “There is only one thing that I know Dorothy doesn’t like and that’s coconut.  Only in Dorothy vernacular it would be ‘I don’t eat coconut.’”

Dorothy grew up in a proper, southern home near Little Rock, Arkansas.  I laughed and said, “Yes, because to say ‘I hate’ would be ugly and improper.  It’s not right to hate.”

Mom replied light heartedly by saying, “Yeah.  They should make it illegal.”

I laughed.  I didn’t think I was laughing all that loudly, but I must have been because I didn’t hear the warning bells that were surely sounding loudly in my ears, “WARNING!  WARNING!  DANGER ZONE! DO NOT APPROACH!  WARNING! WARNING!”  Instead, I reflected on recent events and the news and said, “Yeah well, they’re working on it.”

It was as if a dark cloud descended over her and where only a moment before a jovial smile had adorned her face, now there was anger and disdain as she said, “Yeah.  Isn’t that a mess.”

“Why is it a mess?” I asked.  I was utterly shocked that my supposed peaceful, God-loving, Christian mother could possibly have anything against the Hate Crimes Bill.

“Because!” she said, “Just you watch.  That thing’ll pass and then the next thing you know they’ll be suing churches.”

I’m sorry, what!?  “Who will be suing churches?”, I asked.  I was sure I knew who she meant.  I guess on some level I just needed to make her spew her venom.  I needed to hear it, to know that what I thought she must be saying was, in fact, what she was saying.

“Gay people!  You just watch!  If this thing passes the next thing will be Gay people, suing churches for discrimination.”

I couldn’t believe it.  I couldn’t believe that this woman who raised me and raised me to be respectful to people was spewing such bigoted hogwash that was so completely out of right field. Not only was it bigoted hogwash but it was clear to me that she was speaking from a position of ignorance.  I knew, and tried to convey to her, that the Hate Crimes Bill is not about discrimination.  It isn’t even about equality.  It’s about harsher penalties for those would perpetrate violence against others simply because they hate what that person is or what they perceive that person to be.  I also pointed out to my Mother that everything I’ve ever seen that relates to “equality” does (and I believe rightly so) provide exclusions for religious organizations.

My Mother would not be swayed, “Just you watch,” she told me. “It will happen.”  So what else could I do?  I rolled my eyes and said, “OK, Mother.  Whatever you say.”

Don’t think for a minute that she could let it stand at that.  She went on a diatribe about how wrong homosexuality is and how given the chance it will destroy this country.  And she tried to support her argument with Biblical doctrine.  “Do you not understand that?” she asked me when she was through.

“I understand that not everyone sees it the same way you do, and that doesn’t automatically make them wrong,” I answered.  “I understand that there are multiple ways to interpret things and that it’s not absolutely clear that your way is the right way.”

“There are not multiple ways to interpret it!” She enthused.  “There’s only one way to interpret it.  It’s through out the Bible.”  So apparently there is only one interpretation of the Biblical scriptures and if you’re not sure of the interpretation, just ask my Mother, she’ll tell you.

I could have told her that I have found alternative explanations.  I could have told her that there’s a whole society of people who feel that the Biblical references on which Christians have built their entire structure of judgment and hate toward homosexuals, could just as easily, and with more substantiation, be interpreted to be about hospitality, and against violence and rape.  I could have told her that I’ve found multiple sources, scholars who have devoted themselves to the languages and the understanding of the ancient text who have agreed that the words that have been interpreted to be homosexuality, do not exclusively mean homosexuality, or in many instances can not be translated at all.  I could have told her that the consensus seems to be that the word Homosexual doesn’t even appear in the bible before the latter part of the last century.  I could have told her all these things.  But it was clear that she would not believe me (and really why should she?) and that she would not be open to considering any other possibility other than her own.  So I said nothing.

A silence fell over the table as we continued to eat our lunch.  And then suddenly, “I’m not an ignorant bumpkin, you know,” she said.

“I never said you were an ignorant bumpkin,” I told her.

“Well, you guys sure act like it,” she replied.  I assume she was referring to my siblings and me.

“I don’t think you’re ignorant, or a bumpkin,” I told her.  “I do think you’re highly judgmental and unkind.”  I paused for a moment and then I said, “I have been amazed in the time I have been here at how much time and energy you have spent being angry about any number of things over which you have no control.  You think the world is a terrible place and everything is offensive to you, even though most of it doesn’t impact you directly and none of it can you do anything about.  I just think that must be exhausting for you.”

Sadly, from there the conversation went down hill.  She asked me to give her examples of what I was talking about.  And the only examples I could give her were her commentary on the movie we’d seen the day before when she said, “Oh it was pretty good, I just wish people didn’t have to just jump in to bed with each other all the time.”  I pointed out that it would’ve been sufficient to say that the movie was good.

Her response was that she was answering a question I had asked.  Then I pointed out her reaction to the movie preview for the upcoming remake of Fame, where she was disgusted at the way these “children” were acting.  “People forget that these are 13, 14 and 15 year olds, acting like that.”  I didn’t think the actors looked that age, and seriously doubt that they are that young.

She asked for more examples and I told her I couldn’t give them, because I don’t sit around keeping a tally.  “The point is you get irate about things on an on-going basis and I think it must be exhausting and you could be putting that energy to better use by letting your body use it to heal faster.”

I didn’t expect there to be a change and I’m not surprised there wasn’t, but I felt much better because I didn’t just sit around biting my tongue.  I expressed my view and I didn’t back down, just because my Mother didn’t see things the way I did.  So, I guess in truth there was a change, just not the one I might have hoped for.

My Mother’s bosses were out of town most of the time that I was visiting however they were home for one day and on that one day they took Mom and me to lunch.  At lunch they discussed making a deposit that they had brought back from the trip.  There were a number of credit card charge slips that needed to be put through their electronic credit card machine.  It was decided that we would go by their office after lunch so that we could get the credit card machine and a few other items from the office so that Mom could make the deposit (and by Mom I mean me.)

Boss and I walked into the office with a mental list of things to bring out: Credit Card Machine, Deposit Book, Endorsement Stamp and Hand Lotion.  The last item was for me.  Once we got inside I noticed that the machine was almost out of paper so I called out to the car where Mom was waiting with Mrs. Boss and got instruction where to find more rolls of paper.  Boss and I returned to the car with Credit Card Machine, Deposit Book, Endorsement Stamp, Hand Lotion (for me) and two rolls of Machine Paper (even as I’m writing this I’m realizing this doesn’t sound like much) clutched in my hands.

Later that afternoon, while it was just Mom and me at her house, she made a comment, in a fairly light tone, “Only two men would go in there with that list of stuff and come back without a box or bag to carry it in.”

In the past my Mother has been Jenny on the spot with negative, derogatory comments about men.  This was the only time she made this kind of comment during the whole two weeks I was there, so this is progress.

I replied to her comment with “Only this man walked in there with the presence of mind to make sure you had enough machine tape to do your task so maybe you’ll just be grateful for what you got.”  She decided I was right and let it go.

The rest of my visit with my Mother was fairly uneventful except that it gave me some time to reflect on my life and my relationship with my Mother.  I realized that I was much happier than I’ve been in a while because I neither had to go to or think about work.  I was off work for 26 days including week-ends, so I had a long time, with income, not to think about work at all.  I realized quickly that this is a clear indication that my work environment is not right for me.  I must get out.  I just haven’t figured out how to do that.  Something happened last week that made me seriously think about walking out, but I read today that unemployment in California is at 12%.  It seems unlikely that I can even count on getting work through a temp agency so quitting my job could amount to cutting off my nose to spite my face.

But I know something has to change and quick.  I’m at my wit’s end!

More updates about my trip to follow.  There was a whole week with my sister and her family that was a whole lot more eventful and fun than the time taking care of my mother and before that I did get to spend two separate evenings with Heather, so I’ve got good stories to tell as well.

Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

I came to Tulsa with a definite agenda that had very little to do with amassing blog fodder or finding good stories to tell (and it’s a good thing, because the good stories to tell are few and far between) but I did think I’d have more time to write blog posts.  For the legion (read as four people) of fans who read my blog with any regularity, I apologize for the sporacity (?) with which I’ve posted.

Tonight though, I’ve been thinking about things and felt as though maybe I should write about it.

You see, I came here with a great deal of apprehension.  The last time I was in the same physical space with my mother, she mistreated me greatly, culminating in her threatening to hit me just for standing up for myself.  When I went home after that visit, I was not at all sure that I’d ever come see her again, and our relationship and communications have been strained to say the least.  When I found out my mother was having triple bypass surgery and was going to need help, I didn’t hesitate to do what I had to, but I wasn’t sure what to expect from her in our interactions.

I won’t rehash the whole thing.  If you’re not one of the four, and you don’t know what’s been going on, peruse my last few posts and you’ll understand.

It’s been a week now, and I’m happy to report that she really is making great progress in her physical recovery.  She tires out easily, though her stamina increases every day.  But she has not been resistant to making the effort to keep moving.  She’s not resistant to taking the medication she’s supposed to be taking and she’s not resistant to changing her diet… exactly.  She refuses to change her diet to what they prescribe but is determined to do what she must to take off the 100 extra pounds she’s carrying around with her and for her, that means a low/no Carb diet.  I think (and hope) that this time, she’ll actually see it through to the end.  This heart situation has been an awakening for her, in that respect.  She means business this time around.  I just hope she continues with this level of determination and finishes what she’s started and maintains what she accomplishes.

Our relationship has held up under the circumstances.  She has not been unkind to me.  As I mentioned in my last post, the real test will come when and if I’m ever around her at the same time as my sister, or my sister’s children.  Historically, she’s not very good at loving more than one person at a time and, well, the males are always the ones to get the short end of the stick.  I don’t know what she would do if one of her children were to have a boy child!

No, she has been kind and non-judgmental and even somewhat complimentary of me.  I expected a big to-do over my tattoos and she barely said anything and didn’t drag it out.  She might even be used to them by now and not even notice them.  She hasn’t said a word about my ear rings.  As I mentioned previously, she may not remember that I haven’t had two all along, but if she does, she hasn’t felt it worthwhile to comment.  This is a good thing.

I have learned some things, gained some perspectives from this visit though.

I’ve realized that my mother’s incessant, never ending discussion of Faith and God and Christianity, all of which are things that are important to me too, are, for one thing her way of coping with her own hardships.  She needs to talk about it, to reiterate it over and over for her own sake.  It is her coping mechanism.  Yes, it makes me uncomfortable, and yes I wish it wasn’t so constant, but it’s not actually hurting me and it helps her, so why not let her have that.

It also occurred to me this week that my mother works for a minister, in an office building full of ministries.  This is not a conventional work place.  These peoples’ lives revolve around ministry.  These peoples’ lives are all about telling other people about God and his teachings.  It stands to reason that they would be in that mindset even when they aren’t “at work”.

So maybe, I understand why they (she) feel the need to talk about it ALL THE TIME.

Maybe it’s not such a big deal for me to listen to it when I’m around them, which is not really all that often.

Maybe it doesn’t matter if I don’t agree 100% with everything they say.

And maybe I should take some of my own advice and just listen to what is actually being said, and not read so much into it.  Because maybe, just maybe, no one is actually condemning me for not believing or feeling exactly what they are saying at that moment.

Once again, there will likely be a post, after I return home, about my mother’s perspective on Faith and where I fall on the Faith Continuum, but for now, suffice it to say, that I am a Christian and I do believe in God and faith and healing.  I just believe there’s a lot more to life than just that and I don’t feel the need to make everything I say and do about that.

My mother is strongly, strongly opinionated about pretty much everything.  She feels like the world is a horrible place where the majority of the population is in the wrong about one thing or another.  She doesn’t hesitate to express that opinion and she’s remarkably emphatic about these beliefs.   She’s staunchly republican and ultra conservative to boot.  She believes that George W Bush was a good president and that Barack Obama is insane, but she’s not open to any discussion on the subject.  There is no other acceptable alternative.

Her mind is made up on just about everything.  She’s certain of her rightness in all things and the fact that most of the world doesn’t live up to her rightness, just gives her that much more piety instead of giving her pause to reconsider her position.  Everything is an opportunity to pontificate about the evils of whatever situation is at hand.  And God forbid I should have and express an alternative point of view.

Seven days I’ve been here, sacrificing my time and my desires to care for her while she needs it.  Don’t misunderstand me; I’m happy to do it.  I’m glad I was able to and I know it’s the right thing to do.  But seven day’s I’ve been here just for her, just for her needs.  And seven days I’ve listened to her rail about one thing or another from one minute to the next.  She thinks she’s merely expressing her views, and she thinks surely I agree with everything she thinks and that what she’s saying isn’t the least bit controversial. Seven days I’ve held my tongue, not said a word while she preaches about her belief structure and seven days I’ve tried to steer clear of any topic of conversation that might set her off.

I’m getting tired.  I’m getting completely fatigued from biting my tongue, from listening to the ridiculous rhetoric she dispenses without responding because in order to respond to her, she’s got to be able to carry on a mature, bi-directional conversation in which she actually listens to what I have to say, and even if she doesn’t agree with my point of view, still honor it and respect me for it.

She constantly interrupts me to refute what she thinks I’m going to say, even before I’ve said it, and doesn’t allow me to finish my line of thinking to see if it might actually make sense.

After seven days of this, I really have to fight the urge to roll my eyes, laugh at her and say, “Gosh, it must just be exhausting being so emphatic all the time!”  I just don’t think she even realizes how frequently she judges what goes on around her, and how disgusted and angry she sounds so much of the time.

My track record with a statement like this one is not too great, so if I retract it later, don’t hold it against me, but I think I may have achieved some sort of a break through…

Most of my life, my estimation of my own self-worth and the worth of just about everyone and everything else around me hinged so much on her opinion of it.  I knew that my belief system and opinions about things weren’t the same as hers and yet, for some reason, I needed her to accept me and my perspectives.  For the first time, I really see that she’s a flawed, damaged being that doesn’t have the ability to do that… and that really is OK.  I don’t need her approval and acceptance to be complete and whole.  It’s a really good feeling to know that.

I regret that conversations cannot be had.  I regret that true openness and honestly can’t exist.  But I see it now and accept that it’s just how it is.

I can’t change her.  I can’t make her more understanding and accepting of society.  I can’t make her see that she is judgmental and demeaning of most everything.  And I realize that in a way, if I tried, I’d be just as bad.  So from now on, I’ll focus on accepting that she is the flawed, damaged person that she is, that she will go on being that way as long as she sees fit and nothing I can do or say will change that.

At the same time I will honor myself and no longer hang my value on her approval and no longer be afraid or ashamed to feel what I feel when I feel it.  I may continue to hold my tongue, because no one is served by starting an argument and I do believe that my silence speaks volumes.

And I’ll continue to recognize and honor the strides she has made:

She is not picking fights with me.

She did not truly judge and condemn me for my tattoos and earrings.

She has not directed any of her political or moral venom at me specifically, even though she must know that I don’t agree with her.

She has not reacted to the fact that I refuse to react to or engage her and her tirades.

Oh and she’s complimented my cooking non-stop to everyone she’s spoken too since I’ve been here.

This is the end of my second full day in Tulsa, caring for my mother after her triple bypass surgery.  As I haven’t gone to sleep yet, I consider this to still be Friday (past midnight makes it really Saturday, but who am I to heed details?)  As I’m still considering this to be Friday, it has been one week since my mother’s surgery and her progress in that time is simply amazing!  Miraculous even; that’s truly what it is, a miracle.

Last Friday, my mother was taken early in the day for an angioplasty that revealed one artery 100% blocked, one that was 95% blocked and a third that was substantially blocked though no one seems to remember the percentage.  We now know that my mother was having a heart attack, which she believed to be severe acid reflux, for four days.  Over and over again medical personnel at the hospital told my mother it’s amazing that she even survived the attack.

I’ll go into more detail (maybe) at another time about my mother’s belief in “faith healing” and where we do and don’t agree, and how her opinion has been affected by this experience, but the bottom line is, she admits that this experience was the result of her not listening to her body (and the holy spirit) telling her to make changes and that while this was a terrible thing to have happen to her, she is doing as well as she is and feeling as well as she does because she has faith.  I can go along with that.

I left San Francisco International Airport at 7:30 PDT on Wednesday morning, arriving in Salt Lake City a little after 10:00 Mountain Time.  My flight out of Salt Lake was schedule for 1:35 Mountain time but after being pushed back to 2:10 we actually departed at roughly 1:55.  We landed at Tulsa International at a few minutes after 5:00 PM and I called my mother while the plane was taxiing to the gate.  She was just about to leave the hospital and told me that my friend Heather, who was picking me up and I should just come straight to her house instead of going by the hospital.

I wasn’t entirely prepared for what I’d find, but in a lot of ways it was better than what I suspected.  She looked old and pale and tired, all of which I’m sure is to be expected.  She was sitting in a straight backed chair and didn’t seem to be moving much but she insisted she wasn’t in a lot of pain.  I don’t suppose she is in too much pain as she only takes half of a 7.5 mg hydrocodone pill every 4-5 hours.  When I spoke to her during my layover in Salt Lake City, she told me that she gets tired really fast and that I’ll probably have to help her walk everywhere for the first little while.  By the time I arrived at her house she was able to stand up from the chair on her own and walk into her bedroom to use the restroom without assistance.

Thursday, she was able to dress her self, put on a little make-up and fix her hair, and I drove her to her office where she is the sole employee (Office manager, shipping and receiving clerk, and generally personal assistant) to a Gospel Singer and his wife.  Their office is just one of many in the building and the receptionist at the front office was unable to contain her absolute shock to see my mother not only out of the hospital but up and walking around under her own steam.

In her position with the ministry my mother is a signatory on the checking account and she needed to write her self a paycheck. Twelve years she’s been in this position and it still amuses me that she writes the check to herself signs it with her own name and then endorses the back of the check to deposit in her bank account.

We left her office, went by her bank to deposit the check via a drive up teller window, dropped one piece of mail at a drive up mail box and then went to the grocery store where, according to my mother, “Kevin forced me to ride around in one of those motorized carts.  You know the ones that beep when you back up, as if I weren’t enough of a spectacle already?”  The truth is she was pretty tired when we went in, but she needed to be there with me, and by the time we left she was feeling more energized.

I took her home and while I cooked dinner, Salmon and Asparagus with a salad, she rested.

Today, I drove her to her doctors office to have some blood drawn and tested, and then to pick up a new trial pair of contacts and then took her to the nail salon to get a “buff and polish”.  She missed her regular appointment last week and just needed a little something to tide her over till next week-end… apparently.  I brought her back home and while I cooked dinner, she pretended to do a crossword puzzle, while in reality she was in and out of sleep.  She was ready to go to bed at 6:30, but she knew if she did she’d wake up in the middle of the night and be up for the duration so it was my job to keep her up.  I kept her up till bout 8:30 when I presented her evening medications and helped her into her bedroom.  She was out cold by 9:00.

It’s hard to see her like this.  She has bruises all up and down both arms from all the IVs and things, a massive bruise and much smaller than I expected incision on her left leg near her knee from where they extracted the veins they used for her bypass, and naturally, a long incision down the middle of her chest with bruising and redness all around it.

On the other hand, no one expected her to be this mobile and strong this soon and that’s good to see.

Everyone at the hospital told her she was lucky to have the surgeon she did.  He was apparently the best and his technique is different (better) than any of the others at that hospital.  This surgeon doesn’t use a bypass machine.  Somehow he manages to do the surgery without stopping the patient’s heart, which was good to hear because it was one of the things I had been concerned about.  He also doesn’t use staples to close the incision as most surgeons do.  He uses traditional sutures and does such a tight job that until I asked about it, I thought what I was seeing was dried blood at the point of incision and that she didn’t have anything holding the skin closed.  She’s told that due to his technique and handiwork she will have little or no scar on her chest!

Some of the things I had hoped for and mentioned here seem to be quite out of the question.  I suppose it was a bit of a pipe dream anyway, but I had hoped for her condition to be bad enough that she might be open to some conversation that we can’t otherwise have.  She’s much stronger than I expected and all in all she’s actually doing really well emotionally, which also means that she hasn’t changed much in her outlook, I don’t think.

Perhaps I’m not giving her enough credit, though.  I walked into her house (where we were not alone together) wearing a pair of shorts and a short sleeved t-shirt, meaning all three of my tattoos were fully visible.  I forgot until later that I was wearing my earrings.  I was very up front with her and said, “Let’s get this out of the way while there are lots of people around.  You didn’t know about this but…” and I held out my arm and pointed at the superman logo in flames tattoo that is there and then at the black panther crawling up the outside of my lower left leg.  She saw the tribal design on the back of my neck as I turned around and walked away.  She made a comment (in a light-hearted tone) about how silly and ugly tattoos are and why would anyone do that to themselves.  But outside of asking me politely what made me decide to get them, and later what was on my leg (she hadn’t had glasses on to see it clearly) she hasn’t said much of anything and hasn’t been terribly negative about them.  I knew before I got the first one that she wouldn’t like it so I didn’t expect her to be positive, but I’m impressed that she didn’t make a big deal out of it.

As for my earrings, I got my left ear pierced when I was 18, so she already knew about it.  She may have just forgotten that I didn’t do them both then, or else she just hasn’t bothered to get riled up about it.  That in itself is an improvement on her part.

She talks frequently about God, faith and the Bible and I suppose that’s to be expected.  She lives most of her daily life in a circle where that’s the focus.  And it’s no that I don’t agree with most of what she says, I just don’t feel the need to talk about it incessantly, and I don’t really know what she expects me to say in return which is why I get uncomfortable when she does it.

When we were making our grocery list yesterday, I wrote down Diet Pepsi, because the plain facts are, I’m an addict and I can’t go two weeks without any. She said, “Yich, I don’t like Diet Pepsi.  Especially since they’ve become so vocal about supporting the ‘homosexual agenda’.”  That was hard for me to stomach, but I didn’t say anything.  There may come a time when it’s right to spring that bit of news on her even if she’s not receptive, but this is not that time.  She then said, “I just don’t even like to give them my money.  But I will, for you.”  Make no mistake.  She meant, she’d buy my Diet Pepsi, because she knows it’s the one I prefer, not that she’d give them her money because I am a homosexual.  Still I don’t wish to discount the significance of that attitude shift.

For the most part, things have been fine.  I’ve been able to express my opinions with a minimal amount of resistance from her and I’m able to listen to her opinions without getting bent out of shape about what she’s saying…  So far, she hasn’t said anything particularly derogatory about me, which is either progress, or she just hasn’t gotten around to it yet.  I believe I’ll choose to believe its progress until I see otherwise.

The next big test will be how she treats me when my sister or nieces are around.  Fortunately, that’s not going to happen this trip.

It’s the end of the second full day.  I’m about to turn in for my third night of sleeping in my mother’s house on a borrowed twin sized mattress on the floor.  The good news is that it is on the floor and so if I fall off of the mattress I don’t have far to go.  Why would I fall off of it you ask?  Because, for the last 10 years I have been sleeping on a queen sized mattress with a pillow next to me that I tend to hug when I sleep.  I guess I better get used to this.  I suspect I’ll have more of the same when I get to New York for my visit with my Sister.

Three weeks on the road, by the time I get back to my own bed, I’ll probably feel like I’m swimming in it… Actually that might be kind of nice!

Standing in the kitchen last night, waiting for the water to boil for my soon-to-be-steamed zucchini slices I was rehashing the previous night’s conversation with my mother when I realized that there was something positive to be found in the experience.  I believe it’s important to give credit where credit is due so let me take moment now to do that.

You see, I realized, that as frustrating as this conversation was for me, it was an improvement.  I have to give myself credit.  In the past, I would have sat quietly and made affirmative sounds and gestures, nodding my head as though I agreed.  I would have lied.  Not because I like to lie.  Not because I’m a dishonest person, but because without putting a lot of thought into it I would have instinctively taken the path of least resistance.  I would have felt that the only way through this was to go along and let her say her piece and then move on as quickly as possible.  I would have allowed her to come away from the interaction with the assumption that I agreed with everything she said.  Bush, Good.  Comedians, Bad.  Obama, Crazy.  Me Tarzan, you Mom.

I’m in a very tight spot here.  It’s true that the completely honest thing would have been to tell her that no, I don’t agree that George W Bush was a good President.  Yes, he may be a “Christian”, but I think “good man of God” is taking things way too far.  And, not only do I not think Obama is “crazy”, but I do believe he’s doing a good job; and, though, it may be too soon to really say, he may well be the best president of my lifetime, thus far.

I give myself credit, though, for not falling into the old default of, “Yes, Mother.  No, Mother.  You’re absolutely right, Mother.”  My silence was apparently deafening.

I give her credit, too.  I give her credit for recognizing my silence and for recognizing it for what it meant.  I give her credit for realizing that perhaps I am not in agreement with her and her fanatical politics.

I’d like to give her more credit, but how can I when she followed-up her acknowledgment with this:

“You may not agree with me, I don’t know, but if you’ve gone that far a field, I just don’t even want to know about it.”

That is pretty much what it boils down to, isn’t it.  She can’t accept that there’s any other possible perspective besides her own and if I so completely disagree with her, I must be wrong and shameful and unacceptable and she doesn’t want to know.

I hung up the phone after that conversation and for the first time in my life, I thought, “That woman is crazy!”  I don’t mean that she’s crazy in the “we don’t see eye to eye” sense.  “Crazy ole mom!”  I mean, that woman is crazy!  And now it has me thinking: Why am I so affected by her?  Why does her opinion matter so much to me?  Why is it so important to me, to feel like she accepts me and my life?  Why does it crush me so for her to speak to me with disdain and shame and judgment in her voice?  Why do I take such extreme measures to try and avoid any opportunity for disagreement with her, even at the cost of not being truly open and honest?  Why am I so afraid to hear the things I already know she would say?  And why am I allowing this person, this person who clearly is no authority on anything, to prevent me from living my life fully with confidence and courage and satisfaction?  Why?

My mother raised me, along with my older brother and sister, essentially on her own.  She was the only present parent I had.  Yes, my father is alive and I always knew him but he was never a stable part of my life and to give him any credit as a parent, as a force for good in my upbringing, I feel is to give him more credit than he is due.  My parents separated when I was two years old and I don’t know any other arrangement than this.  My mother was both parents to me.

My mother was also no parent at all.  She provided the absolute bare necessities of my existence.  A roof over my head, lights to read by, water to bath in and meals that may or may not have been palatable but were sufficiently nutrionally complete.  She did not provide emotional support and encouragement.  She did not provide a safe loving environment in which it was possible to make mistakes and learn from them, to have wants and desires that couldn’t always be fulfilled and understand the reasons why, to grow and learn and become a whole and complete being, independent and apart from her.

I didn’t know better.  I didn’t know what I didn’t have and what I ought to have been able to rely on.  I didn’t learn the kind of strength and acceptance that a person needs to be a strong and independent adult.

Despite all the things I didn’t have, despite all that I didn’t know I was lacking, she was all I knew, all I had to base my existence upon.  And so as a child it was imperative that I got approval and affirmation from her, and I would do and say whatever it took to get it, even if it wasn’t really what I felt.  Growing up, with this being all I had to go on, it makes sense that what she thought, how she acted and treated me mattered and affected me deeply.

But then I grew up.  I became an adult.  I moved away and became independent and separate from her and yet, when I speak to her all that falls away and I’m that child who is affected by her behavior and her tone and it hurts me and I don’t know why.

Ironically, a moment ago, the song “That Ain’t Love” by REO Speedwagon came on my iPhone.  At first I didn’t particularly notice, and then the line “That ain’t love, at least it doesn’t feel like love to me” penetrated my senses and broke my concentration. I looked up the lyrics on line.  The song, of course, is about a broken romantic relationship, but reading the lyrics, all but a handful of them seemed remarkably applicable.  Take a look:

That Ain’t Love

by REO Speedwagon

You tell me what you think I’m feelin’, you know why I do what I do
Why should you listen to a word I’m sayin’, when it’s already so clear to you
You tell me ’bout my bad intentions, you doubt the very things I hold true
I can no longer live with your misconceptions, [Mother] all I can say to you, is

That ain’t love, I believe you’ve got the wrong emotion
That ain’t love, at least it doesn’t feel like love to me
As long as I say what you wanna hear
Do what you wanna do, be who you want me to be
You think that’s love, well [Mother] that ain’t love to me

We’ve got to talk it over sometime, these feelings won’t just disappear
I’m just gonna keep telling you what’s on my mind
Even if it’s not what you wanna hear
Oooh right now your world and mine are such different places
Through yours I wander lost and confused
And I feel like I’m speaking in a different language
And the only words I haven’t used, are

That ain’t love, I believe you’ve got the wrong emotion
That ain’t love, at least it doesn’t feel like love to me
As long as I say what you wanna hear
Do what you wanna do, be who you want me to be
You think that’s love, well [Mother] that ain’t love to me

I honestly thought that in writing this, maybe I could find some answers to those “why” questions.  I guess to some extent I have.  I also hoped to find an answer to how to deal with it, how to move past it.  On that front, at least, it seems I was wrong… for now.